


[REPAIR]

by electroheartx, steadycoffeeflow (Salimity)



Series: “Rose” RM500 #928 574 624 [6]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: AU, OCs - Freeform, RP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-09-19 13:20:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17002413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electroheartx/pseuds/electroheartx, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salimity/pseuds/steadycoffeeflow
Summary: Some things cannot be mended so easily.





	[REPAIR]

**Author's Note:**

> [Part of a post-machine Connor ending AU featuring original characters.]
> 
> Steady is steadycoffeeflow's OC, and Rose is mine. Each character's perspective is written by their respective creator.

 

Rose kicked open the safe house door, gasping, weighed heavily by the deviant slung over their back. They were larger and heavier than Rose was -- as most other androids were -- which made for an almost comical sight, were it not for the thirium drenched over their back and legs from the deviant’s missing limbs. 

Leverage had allowed Rose to carry the deviant the urgent five blocks home. They’d pinged ahead of time, but no android was in the vicinity; Aria had been assigned a task at Cyberlife, and Reese was on a separate patrol route -- too far away at the moment to be of any immediate help. It was alright, Rose had this.

They shoved the door shut behind them with a loud slam. Stabby bwooped around their legs in surprised and curious tones, and they pleaded with the Roomba to make way so they could stumble toward the back room with their charge.

Rose had kept a constant watch on the deviant’s vitals on the way -- close, but they’d made it in time. Barely.

Shoving open the door to the back room, they knelt down and shifted their shoulders, smoothly lying the deviant on their back. The thin figure was motionless, obviously in low-power mode. They were still bleeding at a slow but steady pace, though most breaches had been rerouted from their burst veins; Rose’s eyes darted around the room in quick succession, searching for the necessary components for repair.

[Missing: Right Lower Leg. Missing: Left Arm. Damaged: Abdominal exterior paneling. Damaged: Biocomponents #855s, #5138t, #1190, #895d.]

It was almost a surprise that the deviant hadn’t shut down yet, but Rose didn’t have time to consider the feeling. They darted to a cabinet for the first replacement piece; there was no use in replacing the circulation cables if the damaged biocomponents were still hemorrhaging thirium. They had to work fast.

 

Steady was...slow. Even if she was quick for a human, she was still so incredibly slow when androids were involved. Humans thought at a fraction of the speed that androids did, couldn’t process near as much data as quickly as the machines. Their reaction times were nearly 25% faster in all trial tests, and an android was capable of working throughout the night without the breaks humans required in order to maintain productivity levels.

Oh, and androids didn’t seem to need to find a means of coping in a world that was beginning to blur and leave more and more people behind. 65-hours of work Steady had put in. Not all of those she had actually worked, some of it was stealing coffee and granola bars. She also spent an hour talking to Marissa during the other woman’s smoke break, which turned into a ranting session about the season’s numbers and deadlines they were supposed to hit.

Steady didn’t have the heart to tell Marissa that she was over-performing and her sales team loved her reports. Could only stand there and laugh and sway and long for Friday to end.

It had ended, and Steady was even  _ slower _ with half of Jack being acquainted to her system. But nothing sobered a person up like a door being slammed open and  _ no noise to follow _ . Steady sat up, swayed but not in a fun way, and then crept to the stairs where she watched the legs of a body crossing the threshold, deeper into the house.

“Shit,” Steady whispered, a swell of panicked thoughts rising to overwhelm her. Was that Rose? Was Reese hurt? Oh god, had someone broken in? Why hadn’t someone called? Someone was dying. What could she do? Was it Rose? Rose was going to die. Had they been discovered? Rose was going to die.

“Shit, shit shit.” Steady took two stairs at a time, missing the last step and lurching into the wall.  _ Rose couldn’t die _ . Steady’s stomach remained behind her as she rushed into the back room, the room Steady side-eyed when she was leaving the house, when she was making coffee, wary of the room as if it could swallow her whole.

Steady let the room devour her. She realized in a flash that Rose was  _ just fine _ . The relief was fleeting when she saw the android was covered in thirium. Steady’s stomach smacked into her throat, catching up with the rest of her finally. Face flushed, and adrenaline surging through her systems still, Steady held onto the doorway, seeking Rose’s face. Somehow, her voice wasn’t completely awash with liquor, wasn’t even trembling despite her insides twisting and knotting. It was low and rough, the tone of voice she used in meetings when they wanted to install pointless features on the latest batch of RK900s and Steady felt like the only sane one in the room.

“Tell me what you need.”

 

Rose glanced up at the sound of Steady’s voice, but only briefly, arms filled with collected parts. Hadn’t been sure if Steady was home, hadn’t thought to text her, no time to consider it; they registered the rough sentence and fell to their knees beside the deviant, laying the biocomponents out -- careful to stop just short of dropping them, no point in damaging them before they’d even made it into the body.

“Hold her down,” Rose responded to Steady automatically, and lifted the deviant’s shirt to reveal a massive hole in her abdomen. The entire abdominal panel had been, somehow, peeled away; without hesitation, Rose plunged their hand deep into the body cavity and reached up into the deviant’s chest from the inside, searching for the first damaged component.

 

Her.

_ Her _ .

Steady moved and pinned the android’s shoulders down, at first staring at her face. Then Steady asked herself what her name could be. Tried to decipher what the model was beneath the smear and globs of thirium.

Steady applied even more weight to the unnamed deviant’s shoulders as Rose thrust their hands into the chest cavity, and from that moment Steady just slipped away. This was just a thing that was happening in front of her.

Dimly, Steady was aware that she knew life saving work was often the messiest. Saving a life wasn’t clean or orderly as it appeared on TV. Blood spurted out of bodies, people shouted, living in a strained sort of calm that demanded a narrow focus of attention.

 

Rose looked up at Steady with a flash of gratitude as the human darted to their side and pressed the deviant’s shoulders into the floor -- ah, there it was. A click and a twist, and the component was pulled free from its socket. Immediately a reflexive shock wracked the deviant’s systems, every muscle fiber in the frame tensing at once; Rose had anticipated this and pulled their arm free in one swift movement, Steady’s hold preventing the seizing body from whipping up and smacking them in the face. As quickly as they’d pulled it free, Rose’s hand was inside the frame again, finding the empty socket and pressing the new piece in with an audible click. The reflex reaction ceased.

Then out again, finding a new component; repeating with literal surgical precision, the failing systems stabilizing with each piece. A few were external, but most were internal, shredded or punctured from obvious bullet wounds.

As Rose picked up the final biocomponent -- a heart -- the deviant stirred and made a small noise. Rose paused for just a moment, looking up to see dark, sapphire eyes observing themselves and Steady through the blood-slicked hair plastered in rivers across the deviant’s face.

“I don’t want to die,” she said in a low voice.

 

It was a saving grace Steady had anticipated the shocking jolt and had already doubled her applied pressure. When the android went to sit up, Steady’s elbows locked painfully in protest against the action, keeping the body down and flat to the ground.

Fuck. This was bad.

She was dying.

The more pressure Steady applied to the shoulders, the more thirium that buzzed around her fingers, sticky and cool - like blood but not. And Steady’s vision began to drift, not moving per-say and definitely not moving into the required tunnel-vision she thought medical personnel needed. But drift and fade until the images around her were fuzzy. Her eyes unfocused, registering that Rose was busy at work, twisting and jerking and blurring, but not really seeing it for what it was.

A life saving, messy procedure.

The voice snapped Steady back to it, though not all of her filed neatly into line, the jack sloshing from within. “Yeah well,” she said, unclenching her jaw, “who fucking does?”

Slowly, just a second of realization, Steady began to feel her stomach clench. That’s not what you said to someone who was afraid. That’s not what you said to someone at all. Her jaw clenched again. “Just means you’re one of many. So don’t fucking die on us, yeah? Yeah.” Steady threw a hard look at Rose. “What else do you need?” Cause the human was real good at just holding someone sure, but…

 

Rose stared at Steady, taken aback by the outburst. For a moment they were thrown out of emergency focus; they immediately feeling guilty for putting Steady in this situation. They knew the blood and the stress affected her; it still affected Rose, too, but it was far from the first time they’d handled an injured deviant. Steady, however, had never been directly involved in an emergency situation like this. Rose would… would have to apologize to Steady later.

Rose couldn’t afford to pause for too long, however. Not now. They glanced at the heart in their hand, then at the face of the deviant, who watched them in silence -- then gathered themselves together, fixing Steady with a steely look.

“I need you to stay calm, Steady. And keep her stabilized.”

Steady nodded, her face unreadable. Rose turned to the deviant, brushing her hair gently out of her face and pressing their palm to her cheek.

“You’re not going to die, sweetheart. We’re going to help you. What’s your name?”

The deviant closed her eyes for a moment, processing slowly, before opening them again.

“Vida,“ she said, the word flanged and riddled with static pops.

“Vida, my name is Rose, and this is Steady. I need to replace one more biocomponent. You’re going to feel some pressure and alerts, but just for a few moments. We’ve got you, okay?” 

No response from the deviant; she simply closed her eyes again. Rose lifted the deviant’s shredded shirt higher to expose the chest, gently pressing in the panel to access the chest cavity and sliding it aside to reveal the deviant’s rapidly-pulsing heart. Within, thirium flowed rapidly over an LED flushed red in the throes of low-power mode.

The heart hadn’t been physically damaged, but the stress from multiple component failure had fried the organ’s circuits to the point that it was no longer following instructions. It beat irregularly, far too quickly, sometimes skipping beats entirely for long intervals before starting again. Rose took a second glance at Steady to be sure she was ready.

 

Shame was tight in Steady’s throat. The lower part burned, and her tongue was arid as the desert. Scorched. The heat rose to her cheeks as she watched the deviant’s face close in preparation for what was to come. So, Steady bit her tongue. Remained calm.

And then wisely loosened her teeth from her tongue as she instead leaned forward, cradling Vida. Steady’s right elbow tucked beneath Vida’s chin. Braced and held and prayed that whatever Rose was doing it would be fast and it would work. God. Any gods. Damned entities who had let this world fall to rot. Just let this work.

Steady needed this to work.

Vida  _ really _ needed this to work.

 

Steady braced herself against Vida, and Rose took this as a signal to begin. Moving their hands into the deviant’s chest cavity, feeling the hum of electrostatic potential in their own fingers, they pressed clamps on the valves on either side of the oscillating heart; with one closed, the heart’s LED backlight went dark, and with the other, the organ shuddered, then stopped entirely.

Vida made a small noise; then a louder one, and the hand nearest to Rose shot up with its limited motion against Steady’s pin, grasping at the nearest part of Rose she could find; her fingers dug into Rose’s forearm, so tightly that Rose’s overlay began to flash warnings of puncture damage through the thick fabric of their sweater.

For once, Rose could not imagine what she was feeling. Several biocomponents were never intended to be removed while a unit was operational, but the heart… the heart was so tightly-affixed to the body’s frame that manual removal required either a tremendous amount of force -- more than most androids could exert -- or a delicate procedure. One that could only be performed with both hands.

Rose had approximately one minute to remove and replace the heart, but their right arm was held immobile by Vida’s grip.

“Let go, Vida,” Rose said firmly. “I can’t do this with one hand.” 

Vida didn’t respond, her expression as grossly contorted as the skin her fingers were buried in. Fifty seconds.

“Vida,” Rose repeated, louder, and when they still received no response, they wondered if the android was processing auditory input at all. Against their better judgment, Rose felt themselves begin to panic. The V.E., usually subdued in these situations, began to stir. They pounced on it immediately, wrestling it to the proverbial ground -- to put it frankly, they didn’t have time for its bullshit -- but not before it threw an image of Noah into their headspace. For once, however, they’d already been ahead of it. There was a way around this.

Like the most recent case of Noah, new deviants usually had open signals. No need for auditory processing -- a direct line into their consciousness. Rose sank into their own headspace; searched for Vida’s thread, found it with an internal gasp of relief, held on tight. 

Forty seconds.

<Let go, Vida.>

The speech of another android inside her head seemed to shock Vida; the hand seized open, claw suspended in air. In the same motion -- nanoseconds of response time -- Rose plunged back into the chest cavity, twisting open the screws that bound the heart securely to the frame with their bare hands.

Thirty seconds.

 

When Vida’s hand shot out to grab Rose, Steady shifted and tried to catch it. Pull it back. Tugged on it. When Rose said to let go, Steady mirrored the tone. The woman’s voice was already low, fatigued by stressed and harried by alcohol. “You need to stay still, hun.” A hint of warning or honey-lacquered whiskey edged into her voice.

Not that Steady was aware of Rose’s VE capabilities or that Vida had to worry about being disabled or attacked. It was a solitary driving thought that they were running out of time.

With her forehead pressed into Vita’s shuddering chest, thirium smeared across Steady’s face. While aware of it, Steady only pulled harder on Vida’s arm until the android gasped suddenly and let go. Prepared, Steady grappled with her and shifted again, curling her body now around Vida so her head was pressed into Steady’s abdomen. “That’a girl,” she drawled. “Easy now, yeah? Easy.” As if she were speaking to an animal.

The thought made Steady’s squeeze her eyes shut.

Steady continued to coo at the android, not opening her eyes even as Rose threw themself into working on Vida’s chest. Just listened to the shutter-stop motion of Vida’s venting as mechanisms clicked and wore apart inside her. The snap and tussle and smearing of internal organs being rearranged.

Steady  _ couldn’t _ watch. Couldn’t do anything more than just whisper and plead to the uncaring world and lay over a stranger who didn’t want to die. Didn’t want to fade away.

 

All fasteners loosened, Rose pulled the damaged heart free from its moorings. 

Twenty seconds.

The new heart went in. Screws needed to be re-fastened before the clamps would re-engage; their sharp edges dug into Rose’s fingertips, Vida’s thirium and their own mixing, causing Rose’s grip to slide.

Ten seconds.

Rose engaged the first clamp, thirium tubing and wiring snapped together. If anything, they thought wryly, at least the cabling systems were efficient. Second clamp down, and the heart lit up, beating with a steady rhythm in an ironically pleasant shade of Cyberlife blue.

Rose’s vital scan blipped to a stop with three seconds left.

Vida’s gasping subsided, fading into calm breathing; Rose closed the chest cavity access panel, pulled the android’s shirt down, and sat back, breathing along with her. Vida still needed new thirium cables, and a couple of new limbs, but the critical damage had been abated. Rose looked at Steady, curled over Vida; placed a hand on the human’s back, in part to reassure her, in part to stabilize the shaking in their own limbs.

“She’ll be alright,” they said quietly. 

 

Steady sighed at the touch, but didn’t relax immediately. Blinking to adjust her vision, Steady let go of her grip on Vida, then unfurled toward Rose. “Right,” she breathed. “Right, yeah. Good.” But as Steady moved back, she couldn’t help but stare at what she’d been denying. The missing limbs. The smear of thirium on flesh, pooling beneath the body. The sticky sensation and tightening of her own skin as the android’s blood dried on it.

Sitting in the backroom, Steady stared at Vida, then sheepishly raised her eyes to Rose, aware of her outburst from earlier. How inappropriate it had been. How the android likely was regretting the human being home. Would have rathered another android to help. Would have been more use than just pinning a body to the ground, and certainly Reese could have diffused such a tense situation. Aria, with her bright personality, could have made Vida laugh instead of shudder.

Steady lifted a knee to her chest, rested her arm on it, and began to scoot away from Vida with the intent of giving the woman room after her personal space had been violated. “How…?” Steady began, voice low.

Maybe moving had been a mistake.

A swell of nausea and light-headedness overtook her, made her vision swim and head spin. Steady rested her forehead on her arm, took a shallow breath, then another, forcing the air back through a thin-lipped mouth. The adrenaline rush was wearing off. Made the bones feel hollow and the nerves frayed. Her stomach was dropping, along with her blood pressure.

And yet, Steady rode through it. She was familiar with the swooping sensation of her insides as they threatened to tremble apart. Giving in at this point would be a weakness. “How...what happened?” she tried again, swallowing.

 

Rose glanced at Vida; with soft encouragement, the android slipped into standby to conserve what low thirium charge she still had.

Every impulse in Rose’s mind wanted to move to Steady, curl around her, comfort her, but -- warnings flashed at the corners of their eyes, returning to the forefront now that the emergency situation had subsided. Their hand brushed the wet fabric of their shirt absentmindedly; immediately their body stiffened, and rather than moving toward their human friend, their legs pushed themselves up and away toward the shelves in search of thirium, limbs and cables.

 

“Oh, you know. Hunter.” Rose sighed, digging through a pile of spare lower legs. “Heard the gunshots on patrol from a few blocks away. Vida was already injured when I showed up.” 

They figured it might be best to spare Steady the grisly details of what had happened to the Hunter.

Steady made a non-committal noise in her throat. They eyed her, pulling a leg from the pile; the woman was staring at Vida with a pale expression. Rose set the leg on the workbench and stole the moment to quickly zip up their jacket, covering the two perfectly round holes in her torso. They were small and relatively inconsequential, easy enough to miss in the confusion and the sheer amount of Vida’s blood. Simple to repair. No need to worry Steady further.

“I don’t know what led up to it,” they continued, gently slipping a couple of circulatory cables into their front pocket. They turned back toward Steady with the rest of their cargo in her arms. “Maybe... she can tell us more when she’s ready.”

 

A hunter.

A  _ hunter _ .

If Steady had thought it through, she would have come up with the answer herself. But the confirmation of something unthought, the horror Steady hadn’t given herself room to grow within her, had her heart stuttering again. Her human systems began to ramp up in preparation for more stress, even as she was easing back into something resembling comfort.

If there was a hunter nearby, then surely they were in danger. Certainly they were-

Still tight-mouthed, Steady lifted her head, rested the side of it to her forearm when her vision swam. “Are we compromised?” she whispered, watching Rose’s face for any indication the android was lying, trying to protect her. “And if we’re not…” Steady began, voice trailing away.

Because Rose wasn’t arguing to move, and they’d brought Vida here. To the safe house. Which meant there couldn’t be a threat of a hunter. Not anymore.

Steady took in a shaky breath.

Maybe Reese had intercepted. Aria. What if Rose wasn’t telling her something, always she wasn’t being told something, she worked for CyberLife. Who  _ would _ trust her with any information? Like Reese Aria being dead dead they might have gotten killed fended off the hunter while Rose ran. Rose wasn’t dead, not dead, but someone else might still be could be hiding it from her Aria being puke Steady had to run away to safety with the bleeding blood all over splashes of cobalt on the-

Steady got to her feet.

“Excuse me,” she said and, in what she thought was a dignified manner, went to the kitchen.

Instead, Rose would notice the trembling fingertips and the blatant step into the doorframe - had already noticed the paling sweaty skin - Steady half sagging into the house-structure before flinging away from it toward the kitchen sink.

 

Rose shook their head in silence at the question of compromise, biting their lip as they watched Steady grow even more pale and stumble away. Already knew where she was going, from the signs of stress on her face; a natural human reaction. Rose would give her a moment alone. They needed one for themselves, as well.

Their guilt over Steady’s state of mind sank in deeper, worming its way into the corners of their limbs as they finished the work on Vida. It was less over the situation itself, and more that their friend was disturbed, was hurting; as much as Rose wished that their small family was only warm feelings, only songs and painting and piles of friends on the living room couch, this… mess, was the true purpose of the house.

The reality of Rose’s mission was something they had accepted a long time ago: their world was steeped in violence, even more so in the gruesome work necessary to reverse the effects of it. Steady, however, had only just been thrown into the center of the maelstrom. Rose had known it was inevitable when Steady had arrived, boldly claiming her portion of the house. Had warned her. Had tried to protect her, knowing it was a losing battle. They’d gotten away with dancing around the issue until this moment, but they wondered -- insides twisting at the thought -- if it was truly worth the tax on Steady’s mental health to continue to allow her to stay at the safe house.

Vida’s remaining repairs were quick. Five minutes to click new limbs into place, replace punctured cables with sealed ones, and install a new abdominal panel. Vida and Rose were both still tacky with slowly-drying thirium, but it was nothing a quick shower wouldn’t fix at a less desperate point in time..

Rose pulled out one of the old cots they kept in the storage room for just this purpose. Alone, they lifted Vida (with some effort) to lie on it, bloomed a soft blanket over her resting form. Pink, decorated with flowers -- one of Aria’s contributions.

As for the pool on the floor -- and the handprints, footprints, warm blue smears across the wood and concrete -- Rose was already unable to determine their locations, and so they left them to dry. To the human eye, the substance would evaporate and fade almost entirely, becoming undetectable, as if nothing had ever happened. Other androids with spectral scanning abilities -- usually Aria, or one of several temporary deviant occupants -- would eventually elect to clean it for their own sensibilities. To Rose, however, without something to draw their attention to it, the electric hue was completely invisible. It wasn’t that they didn’t see it -- much as a human might lose the meaning of a word with successive repetitions, the color was plastered across the back of their eyelids by the V.E., a humming, constant hue; over time, Rose had become so used to it that their mind filtered it from attention into layers of white noise, disappearing entirely into the background of their mental tapestry, hiding the evidence in plain sight.

On the back of the storage room door, Rose pasted a note scrawled on a small square of pale aqua.

[You’re safe here. Come and see me when you wake up. - Rose]

They gently closed the door behind them. The kitchen entrance was directly across from the storage room door; they could see Steady still curled over the sink, elbows perched on the edge and hair tangled up in her fingers, faucet open and running with a droning hiss.

Rose stopped in the doorway, keenly aware of their own habit of startling people. Utilized the least anxiety-inducing way to make sure her presence was known.

“Steady,” they said over the water.

 

To her benefit, Steady didn’t throw up. It probably wasn’t a bad idea, considering it would purge her system of enduring through the process of sobering up, but she was resolutely against the idea. Both because it would make her look weak in front of the new deviant friend and that it was a waste of perfectly good liquor just because she was being weak.

So, instead, Steady went through the motions of splashing her face with cold water and then washing the thirium away. Steady knew, both from personal experience and through reports she received at work, that thirium would still be detectable to scans for months, no matter how hard she scrubbed. In some ways, it was similar to blood, where trace amounts still contained enough DNA to catch criminals decades after the fact.

The thought process lurched to a thought when she considered how she was going to have to show up to work with thirium stains across her face. How she’d have to avoid every single fucking RK unit in that building, or just avoid eye contact.

She’d  _ especially _ have to avoid the problem child. Darling dear of CyberLife. Kill count brought up every meeting. Gun in face. Gun in face gun gun gun hole of the barrel right at eye line-

Steady scrubbed harder at her forehead, stinging her skin with the wire mesh dish pad, eyes squeezed shut and shaking her head to ward off the image that made the whole world spin again. The cold water was grounding. The pain was grounding. Standing on the ground was grounding.

By the time Rose came out, Steady was simply letting the water pool in her hands and was splashing it into her face, watching the now clear water spin down the drain.

For the second time in a hot minute, Steady’s stomach lurched at how familiar this memory was to her, how’d she’d already lived it before. Thirium and blood pooling together, running down the hole of a sink, spinning and needing to be scrubbed from underneath the fingernails.

Head spinning and the rush of adrenaline making  _ gun in face _ her stomach swoop. Hadn’t been teetering on shitfaced that night, but every night after...

“Real good water pressure in this place,” Steady said, hopefully cutting Rose off from saying anything too pitiful for the human’s sake. “I used to live in places where the sink would get clogged just by running the water. Had a plunger under the sink to push it all down.” Steady continued leaning over the sink, pooling the water and letting it run through and over her fingers.

“I’m fine. How is she?” Steady asked, steel in her voice.

 

Rose raised their eyebrows at being cut off. Steady’s head was still in the sink; even without biometric scans -- an ability Rose didn’t have -- it wasn’t difficult to tell that she was not, in fact, fine.

“Operational. And resting,” Rose said. They folded their arms against Steady’s tone, leaned against the frame of the archway. Casual gestures, conveniently masking their own current internal need for support and protection.

“Thank you, for your help.” An offer of gratitude, good feelings to cut through the mire. “You didn’t need to step in, really, but I... I appreciate it.”

 

Steady nodded. “That’s good.” Steady might have loosened up, but she stiffened at Rose’s words. Shut the water off, busied herself with drying her arms and hands. “Heh, so I wasn’t really needed, huh?” And like that, the sharp edge to her tone was brittle, chipping away while it tried to cut. Left her feeling exposed in the kitchen, water splashed all over her clothing. She’d have to peel out of that too. Throw it in the wash. Hope the thirium hadn’t totally set.

Rather would think about the laundry than how utterly useless she felt. The sensation overwhelmed her, spinning the world in a different direction. Her fingers shook more, so she stuffed them into her pockets, hid them along her sides, traced them through her damp hair. It hurt, having it pointed out. Even in a nice way. Even in a polite way.

Rose hadn’t needed Steady.

And Steady felt rather silly for getting so worked up in the first place.

“Well. If you don’t need anything,” Steady continued, voice like shale. She jerked her head upstairs, where the rest of her bottle awaited her.

 

Rose’s arms were not enough defense. They let them fall to their sides, Steady’s words having found purchase between their metaphorical ribs. Twisting, trying to hurt both of them simultaneously. Why?

“That’s,  _ not _ what I meant. All of that would have been a lot more difficult without you. I’m just saying... that you didn’t  _ have _ to do anything you were uncomfortable with.”

They ran their thirium-stained hands through their hair. Rose had  wiped most of it off on their clothes, but could still feel tacky bits coming off on the strands. Was sure it made for an amusingly macabre shade of violet -- a hex they elected not to calculate.

“I just…” Rose paused. Looked at Steady, stained clothes, fingers shaking, red mark on her forehead where she’d abused the thirium out of her presence. Realized with a gnawing feeling that they were being selfish. Trying to alleviate their own guilt. Their emotions, they reminded themselves, were not the focus here. Were never --  _ could _ never be the focus. They weren’t afforded that luxury. 

_ Push everything down, attend to your friend’s needs. Twist the weapon further in of your own accord. Let the feeling dissolve in harmony with the holes already punched through your skin. _

Rose breathed and lifted their chin, shifting gears. 

“You’re clearly upset, and I’m sorry for that.” Tone still gentle. “What can I do to help?”

 

Steady looked at her friend.

And that meant really looking at Rose. Focusing, leaning against the counter to still everything, and squinting a bit too. No that. That wasn’t what Steady anticipated. No no. No Steady was just supposed to be pitied and then shunted off to bed to sleep this off.

She was the group’s human, a warning siren call for how much better androids were than humans. Faster, smarter, stronger and more resilient in  _ so _ many ways. Self-sacrificing. Pure of heart and soul, for the most part. Steady leaned and swayed  _ gun to the head _ and closed her eyes as Rose gently asked what they could do to help.

‘Don’t be nasty,’ Steady cautioned herself. ‘Please please please, don’t lash out. Rose is your friend. Keep them your friend. You deserve friends. This is what friends do they  _ gu n to th e head _ .’

Steady snapped straight up. Snapped a smile on her face. No. This wouldn’t turn out like last time. “I’m fine,” Steady repeated, finding Rose’s face in her swimming vision. “I’m not the one missing limbs who almost died.” Steady winked. Then her vision swooped with her stomach at the action. Oh no. Both eyes needed to be on the same page.

Steady leaned back on the counter again. “Prolly just...shouldn’t get so excited when I’m having a night cap, but really, I’m fine,” she said. And at this point even Steady was aware she was just trying to convince herself. “I’m fine, if you’re fine.” Through her blearly vision, Steady glanced at Rose to see how they were taking this rather pathetic display of humanhood. “And you are good, yeah? Rose?”

 

Rose watched as Steady leaned back on the counter in what they were sure the human thought was a casual stance, but she was leaning a bit too far to one side, further, tipping slowly by minute degrees. They hadn’t noticed how drunk Steady really was, their focus lost in the moment and in their own mind, adrenaline in Steady’s systems having turned her will to iron until the moment she could finally collapse. Which was -- about now.

As Steady teetered more toward being horizontal, Rose stepped forward and caught her shoulder, then gently pulled her into a more vertical hug. Partially to keep Steady stabilized, and partially because Rose had nothing else to say with words. Not now, anyway. Buried their face in the taller woman’s shoulder, hoped this would be enough.

 

“Uh,” Steady said, holding out her arms, not yet accepting the hug. “Is that...is that a no? Not okay?” Steady laid a hand to rest on Rose’s shoulder, but kept her eyes open. She knew from experience that closing her eyes would result in her spinning out and likely needing to fight back the urge to throw up.

Which, thankfully, it was just her limbs threatening to shake apart from her body, not her insides wrenching free. Yet.

Rose’s front was sticky with thirium, pressing and squishing from beneath their jacket they had zipped up. “Rose?” Steady asked, pitching her voice up. “Are you okay? Talk to me, what’s going on?”

 

Rose lifted their head and looked at Steady. They couldn’t find it in themselves to force her to leave; she was her own person, and could make decisions for herself. She’d known the risks from the beginning.

“I’m fine.” They smiled disarmingly at Steady. “Hey, why don’t you get some rest, yeah? We can talk later.”

They squeezed Steady’s shoulders and moved away.

“I’m going to, stay down here and wait for Vida to wake up. Reese should be back soon, as well, so...”

 

Steady shifted back away from Rose. “Right,” she breathed, folding her arms across her chest. Anything she noticed must’ve just been drunk brain talking. Rose was fine. They always were.

Which, Steady was always saying she was fine too, something beyond drunk brain whispered.

Whatever it was shirked from Rose’s smile and Stead began to follow their instruction. “I’ll be upstairs. Soaking. Or something. Pickling was it?” A nervous laugh. Steady leaned into the frame once more, watching Rose. “You uh, if you’re good and Vida’s good…” Steady cleared her throat. “You always do amazing. Proud of you.”

There was a twinge in her gut when she said it, and Steady began to back up toward the stairs. Too flimsy. Words easily forgotten and swatted down. Smothered by the weight of tension to the walls they tried to pinprick to shatter. Steady pointed to the kitchen sink with a gunning action. “Whelp, sink’s all yours,” she said before clambering up the stairs with less gusto than she’d come down, leaving Rose to themself and Vida.

 

“Thanks, Steads,” Rose called up the stairs after her. “I’m proud of you, too.”

They meant it, of course, but no response came from upstairs.

Heavy with resignation, Rose sat down on the living room couch. Pressed a hand to their stomach -- glanced down in surprise at the cold pressure of wet fabric. Not all circulatory routes were able to be diverted; Rose had slowed the bleeding enough for it to remain internal, but leaning forward to hug Steady must have -- 

They glanced at the stairs, wondering too late if Steady had noticed. Surely, if she had, she would have said something. 

Wouldn’t she?

The spare thirium cables received a scowl as Rose slipped them from their pocket. Despite logic’s insistence that it wasn’t their fault, they still felt a sinking pit in their stomach that they’d failed somehow. At being a leader, at being a friend.

There had to be something, anything they could do to help Steady. Rose’s routine already included reminding her every day how much she was appreciated, leaving little gifts and notes for her to find while she was away at work -- as they did with everyone. All they wanted was to protect their friends, make sure everyone was happy despite the dire circumstances. What else could Rose possibly do? Where had they gone wrong?

Logic reared its ugly head again with a comeback, gleefully dragging up an abandoned carcass of knowledge from the corner of Rose’s mind. Shook the rotting thing in front of them. Rose closed their eyes and breathed, at this distance unable to prevent the miasma from flooding the corners of their mind.

They could deflect a hundred Hunters, jump of in front of as many bullets as they liked, but there was one place they could not come to their friends’ rescue; the thought ached in their chest with the breaches in their physicality, the contorted knife in their soul.

Nothing in the universe would get the message across to someone that they were loved, or  _ needed _ , when they didn’t believe it themselves.

As Rose pulled open their own abdominal panel to access the wounded plastic inside, they began making plans to do something nice for Steady later.

Nothing else to do but keep trying.

**Author's Note:**

> Soundtrack:  
> https://open.spotify.com/track/4bW6gwOOTkhBUyWTXSMvgh?si=hROAEPbgTUuLxpvvkhI7Jg  
> https://open.spotify.com/track/3M8FzayQWtkvOhqMn2V4T2?si=toJM_7RnQS2RUpCtPqYRtw


End file.
